Backward, flow backward, O full tide of years!I am so weary of toil and of tears,Toil without recompensetears all in vain,Take them and give me my childhood again.I have grown weary of dust and decay,Weary of flinging my hearts wealth awayWeary of sowing for others to reap;Rock me to sleep, mother, rock me to sleep. A. M. W. BallRock me to Sleep, Mother. Attributed to Elizabeth Akers Allen. See Northern Monthly. Vol. II. 1868. Pub. by Allen L. Bassett, Newark, N. J. Appendix to March, Vol. II. 1868. Ball shows proof that he wrote it in 18567. Produces witness who saw it before 1860. Mrs. Allen says she wrote it in Italy, 1860. It was published in The Knickerbocker Mag., May, 1861.

Backward, turn backward, then time in your flight;Make me a child again just for tonight.Mother, come back from the echoeless shore,Take me again to your heart as of yore. A. M. W. BallRock me to Sleep, Mother.

Think not thy time short in this world, since the world itself is not long. The created world is but a small parenthesis in eternity, and a short interposition, for a time, between such a state of duration as was before it and may be after it. Sir Thomas BrowneChristian Morals. Pt. III. XXIX.

Behind, he hears Times iron gates close faintly, He is now far from them;For he has reached the city of the saintly, The New Jerusalem. Rev. James D. BurnsPoem of a Death Believer. In the Vision of Prophecy.

How slowly time creeps till my Phbe returns!While amidst the soft zephyrs cool breezes I burn.Methinks if I knew whereabouts he would tread,I could breathe on his wings and twould melt down the lead.Fly swifter, ye minutes, bring hither my dear,And rest so much longer for t when she is here. John ByromA Pastoral.

Yet Time, who changes all, had altered him In soul and aspect as in age; years stealFire from the mind as vigour from the limb;And lifes enchanted cup but sparkles near the brim. ByronChilde Harold. Canto III. St. 8.

O Time! the beautifier of the dead, Adorner of the ruin, comforterAnd only healer when the heart hath bled Time! the corrector where our judgments err,The test of truth, love, sole philosopher, For all besides are sophists, from thy thriftWhich never loses though it doth defer Time, the avenger! unto thee I lift My hands, and eyes, and heart, and crave of thee a gift. ByronChilde Harold. Canto IV. St. 130.

That great mystery of TIME, were there no other; the illimitable, silent, never-resting thing called Time, rolling, rushing on, swift, silent, like an all-embracing ocean tide, on which we and all the Universe swim like exhalations, like apparitions which are, and then are not: this is forever very literally a miracle; a thing to strike us dumb,for we have no word to speak about it. CarlyleHeroes and Hero Worship. Lecture I.

No ay memoria à quien el tiempo no acabe, ni dolor que nuerte no le consuma. There is no remembrance which time does not obliterate, nor pain which death does not put an end to. CervantesDon Quixote. III. 1.

Know the true value of time; snatch, seize, and enjoy every moment of it. No idleness, no laziness, no procrastination: never put off till to-morrow what you can do to-day. ChesterfieldLetters to his Son. Dec. 26, 1749.

No! no arresting the vast wheel of time, That round and round still turns with onward might, Stern, dragging thousands to the dreaded nightOf an unknown hereafter. Charles Cowden ClarkeSonnet. The Course of Time.

Begin, be bold, and venture to be wise, He who defers this work from day to day, Does on a rivers bank expecting stay,Till the whole stream, which stopped him, should be gone,That runs, and as it runs, for ever will run on. CowleyThe Danger of Procrastination. Translation of Horace. 1. Ep. II. 4.

The four eights, that ideal of operative felicity, are here (New Zealand) a realized fact. J. A. FroudeOceana. Ch. XIV. The four eights are explained in a footnote to be Eight to work, eight to play, eight to sleep, and eight shillings a day.

I count my time by times that I meet thee; These are my yesterdays, my morrows, noons, And nights, these are my old moons and my new moons.Slow fly the hours, fast the hours flee,If thou art far from or art near to me: If thou art far, the birds tunes are no tunes; If thou art near, the wintry days are Junes. R. W. GilderThe New Day. Pt. IV. Sonnet VI.

I made a posy while the day ran by;Here will I smell my remnant out, and tie My life within this band.But time did beckon to the flowers, and theyBy noon most cunningly did steal away, And witherd in my hand. HerbertThe Temple. Life.

Old Tune, in whose banks we deposit our notes,Is a miser who always wants guineas for groats;He keeps all his customers still in arrearsBy lending them minutes and charging them years. HolmesPoems of the Class of 29. Our Banker. (1874).

Quidquid sub terra est, in apricum proferet ætas;Defodiet condetque nitentia. Time will bring to light whatever is hidden; it will cover up and conceal what is now shining in splendor. HoraceEpistles. I. 6. 24.

Seven hours to law, to soothing slumber seven,Ten to the world allot, and all to heaven. Sir Wm. JonesOde in Imitation of Alcæus. See Lord TeignmouthMemoirs of the Life and Writings of Sir William Jones. Letter to Charles Chapman. Aug. 30, 1784. Also Errata. P. 251. The muses claim the rest, or the muse claims all beside are the changes made by Jones, according to Andrew AmosFour Lectures on the Advantages of a Classical Education. London, 1846. P. 78.

Alas! it is not till Time, with reckless hand, has torn out half the leaves from the Book of Human Life to light the fires of human passion with, from day to day, that man begins to see that the leaves which remain are few in number. LongfellowHyperion. Bk. IV. Ch. VIII.

What we want, we have for our pains The promise that if we but waitTill the want has burned out of our brains, Every means shall be present to state;While we send for the napkin the soup gets cold,While the bonnet is trimming the face grows old,When weve matched our buttons the pattern is sold, And everything comes too latetoo late. FitzHugh LudlowToo Late.

However we pass Time, he passes still, Passing away whatever the pastime,And, whether we use him well or ill, Some day he gives us the slip for the last time. Owen Meredith (Lord Lytton)The Dead Pope.

Who can undoWhat time hath done? Who can win back the wind?Reckon lost music from a broken lute?Renew the redness of a last years rose?Or dig the sunken sunset from the deep? Owen MeredithOrval, or the Fool of Time. Second Epoch. Sc. 1. Said to be a translation of a French translation of The Inferno. See Saturday Review. London. Feb. 27, 1869.

A wonderful stream is the river of Time As it runs through the realms of tears,With a faultless rhythm and musical rhyme,And a broader sweep and a surge sublime, And blends with the ocean of years. Appeared in Moores Rural New Yorker. May 31, 1856, probably from Whyte Melvilles Uncle John.

Surely in a matter of this kind we should endeavor to do something, that we may say that we have not lived in vain, that we may leave some impress of ourselves on the sands of time. From an alleged Letter of Napoleon to his Minister of the Interior on the Poor Laws. Pub. in The Press, Feb. 1, 1868.

Tempora labuntur, tacitisque senescimus annis;Et fugiunt fræno non remorante dies. Time glides by, and we grow old with the silent years; and the days flee away with no restraining curb. OvidFasti. VI. 771.

His golden locks Time hath to silver turned, O time too swift! O swiftness never ceasing!His youth gainst Time and Age hath ever spurned, But spurned in vain! Youth waneth by increasing. George PeeleSonnet. Polyhymnia. Another version published in Segers Honor Military and Civil. (1602).

Gone! gone forever!like a rushing waveAnother year has burst upon the shoreOf earthly beingand its last low tones,Wandering in broken accents in the air,Are dying to an echo. George D. PrenticeFlight of Years.

Expect, but fear not, Death: Death cannot kill,Till Time (that first must seal his patent) will.Wouldst thou live long? keep Time in high esteem:Whom gone, if thou canst not recall, redeem. QuarlesHieroglyphics of the Life of Man. Ep. 6.

Een such is time! which takes in trust Our youth, our joys, and all we have;And pays us naught but age and dust, Which, in the dark and silent grave,When we have wandered all our ways,Shuts up the story of our days.And from which grave, and earth, and dust,The Lord will raise me up, I trust. Sir Walter Raleigh. Written in his Bible. Cayleys Life of Raleigh. Vol. II. Ch. IX.

Hour after hour departs, Recklessly flying;The golden time of our hearts Is fast a-dying:O, how soon it will have faded!Joy droops, with forehead shaded;And Memory starts. John Hamilton ReynoldsHour After Hour.

Infinita est velocitas temporis quæ magis apparet respicientibus. The swiftness of time is infinite, which is still more evident to those who look back upon the past. SenecaEpistolæ Ad Lucilium. XLIX.

Urbes constituit ætas: hora dissolvit: momento fit cinis: diu sylva. An age builds up cities: an hour destroys them. In a moment the ashes are made, but a forest is a long time growing. SenecaQuæstionum Naturalium. Bk. III. 27.

Lets take the instant by the forward top;For we are old, and on our quickst decreesThe inaudible and noiseless foot of TimeSteals ere we can effect them.Alls Well That Ends Well. Act V. Sc. 3. L. 39.

Time travels in divers paces with divers persons. Ill tell you who Time ambles withal, who Time trots withal, who Time gallops withal, and who he stands still withal.As You Like It. Act III. Sc. 2. L. 326.

See the minutes, how they run,How many make the hour full complete;How many hours bring about the day;How many days will finish up the year;How many years a mortal man may live.Henry VI. Pt. III. Act II. Sc. 5. L. 25.

O, how shall summers honey breath hold out Against the wreckful siege of battering days,When rocks impregnable are not so stout, Nor gates of steel so strong, but Time decays?O fearful meditation! where, alack, Shall Times best jewel from Times chest lie hid?Or what strong hand can hold his swift foot back? Or who his spoil of beauty can forbid?Sonnet LXV.

Time hath, my lord, a wallet at his back,Wherein he puts alms for oblivion,A great-sized monster of ingratitudes;Those scraps are good deeds past; which are devourdAs fast as they are made, forgot as soonAs done.Troilus and Cressida. Act III. Sc. 3. L. 145.

Time is like a fashionable hostThat slightly shakes his parting guest by the hand,And with his arms outstretchd, as he would flyGrasps in the comer: welcome ever smiles.Troilus and Cressida. Act III. Sc. 3. L. 165.

Unfathomable Sea! whose waves are years, Ocean of Time, whose waters of deep woeAre brackish with the salt of human tears! Thou shoreless flood, which in thy ebb and flowClaspest the limits of mortality! And sick of prey, yet howling on for more, Vomitest thy wrecks on its inhospitable shore,Treacherous in calm, and terrible in storm, Who shall put forth on thee, Unfathomable sea? ShelleyTime.

For time would, with us, stead of sand, Put filings of steel in his glass,To dry up the blots of his hand, And spangle lifes page as they pass.Since all flesh is grass ere tis hay, O may I in clover lie snug,And when old Time mow me away, Be stacked with defunct Lady Mugg! Horace and James SmithRejected Addresses. The Beautiful Incendiary, by the Hon. W. S. 10.

Time wears all his locks before, Take thou hold upon his forehead;When he flies he turns no more, And behind his scalp is naked.Works adjournd have many stays,Long demurs breed new delays. Robt SouthwellLoss in Delay.

Too late I staid, forgive the crime, Unheeded flew the hours;How noiseless falls the foot of Time That only treads on flowrs!What eye with clear account remarks The ebbing of his glass,When all its sands are diamond sparks That dazzle as they pass?Ah! who to sober measurement Times happy swiftness brings,When birds of Paradise have lent Their plumage for his wings? W. R. SpenserTo the Lady Anne Hamilton.

A wonderful stream is the River Time, As it runs through the realms of Tears,With a faultless rhythm, and a musical rhyme,And a broader sweep, and a surge sublime As it blends with the ocean of Years. Benjamin F. TaylorThe Long Ago.

Every moment dies a man, Every moment one is born. TennysonVision of Sin. St. 9. (Minute for moment in early Ed.) Every minute dies a man, / And one and one-sixteenth is born. Parody on Tennyson by a Statistician.

Once in Persia reigned a kingWho upon his signet ringGraved a maxim true and wise,Which if held before the eyesGave him counsel at a glanceFit for every change and chance.Solemn words, and these are they:Even this shall pass away. Theodore TiltonThe Kings Ring. (All Things Shall Pass Away.)

Time is eternity;Pregnant with all eternity can give;Pregnant with all that makes archangels smile.Who murders Time, he crushes in the birthA power ethereal, only not adornd. YoungNight Thoughts. Night II. L. 107.